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tumultuous

UK/tjʊˈmʌl.tjʊ.əs/US/tuˈmʌl.t͡ʃu.əs/
adjectiveC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #12,765 of 15,258leans written

Tumultuous means noisy, disorderly and full of upheaval. A tumultuous welcome, tumultuous applause, a tumultuous year.

Tumultuous applause is the fixed phrase and means a roar rather than mere clapping. Of a period it means one thing after another, and the Latin behind it is an uproar.

Definitions of tumultuous

  1. 1adjectivetumultuousNoisy, disorderly and full of upheaval.C1

    “The country went through a tumultuous period of strikes, riots and changes of government.”

tumultuous is a quality.

Where it comes from

Latin tumultuosus comes from tumultus, an uproar or commotion.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *tewh₂-

  2. Latin

    tumultuōsus — restless, turbulent

  3. Old French

    tumultuous

  4. English, today

    tumultuous

Built from

  • tumultus · Latin — disturbance, uproar, violent commotion, tumult; agitation, disturbance, excitement

From Old French tumultuous (modern French tumultueux), from Latin tumultuōsus (“restless, turbulent”), from tumultus (“disturbance, uproar, violent commotion, tumult; agitation, disturbance, excitement”) + -ōsus.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

tumultuous in the wild

  • The surrounding area is of note for the tumultuous terrain created by the ejecta from Mare Imbrium.

    Drude (crater)

  • Having a very tumultuous life, and constantly assailed by diseases, he died in 1860, a victim of tuberculosis.

    António Augusto Soares de Passos

  • Events from the year 1944 in Italy were tumultuous, during which was the heaviest fighting in World War II in Italy.

    1944 in Italy

  • The Raid on Rannoch took place in 1753 in the tumultuous aftermath of the Jacobite rising of 1745.

    Raid on Rannoch

  • The Killin incident of 1749 took place in August 1749 in Killin in the Scottish Highlands in the tumultuous aftermath of the Jacobite rising of 1745.

    Killin incident of 1749

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

From Project Gutenberg, public domain. These sentences are from real books, shown to illustrate the word at work.

Related words

the tumultus family

tumultuoustumult

tumultuous — used about once every 15,236 pages · #12,765 · point at the bar for the others